I tried again, and it seems that the settings on QM affect the results a lot by changing AI behavior.

If I climb a bit, AI turns around and confronts me. If I just try to pursue, they will fly away from me, acquire lots of speed (I can't catch them), and then turn around far away and fight back.
Somehow this gives them an advantage I can't counter back with my sluggish 110.
I always avoid frontal fire exchange, because I consider it "cheating". Even if the Pe2 rear gunner is a cheat in itself! Some marksman those guys! They will fire at you with precision never matter hard turns, high G's or whatever.

Flying on the Pe side, I always win, on the 110 side, a win was extremely hard.

What about luring Pe in turn fight? It worked for me in low alt scenario. And shoot, shoot, shoot. Even the smallest (and sometimes invisible on model) wing damage of Pe-3 impacts her agility considerably.

Saying that, in one on one encounter in multiplay I'd prefer Pe-3 bis to any Bf 110 model.

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Just tried C4, D1 and E2 in 500 m scenario vs AI Pe-3bis.
I still prefer F2 as it seems to me the most balanced in speed and agility. C4 was a bit difficult due to lower speed and climb. D1 surprised with good climb (is it better than F2?) - with all tanks dropped, of course.

All in all, I have concluded that I can beat AI Pe-3bis in any Bf 110 variant in most cases. Multiplay is different story

__________________
Q: Mr. Rall, what was the best tactic against the P-47?
A: Against the P-47? Shoot him down!
(Gunther Rall's lecture. June 2003, Finland)

Jackson, I would give the mission a high difficulty rating, especially if you are going after the bombers. I don't think the mission is to take down any bombers though, or it should not be. Your field is being attacked and your wingmen are under fire from zeros, so I don't think any real pilot would take off and leave the airfield and their wingmen alone to fly away and attack bombers.

But I did just that a few times and I did go after the bombers, but because they start in the air by the time you intercept them they are approaching Pearl Harbor, and with them flying in formation with tail-gunners I think the best anyone is going to do is to get maybe one shot down before they are peppered to death by the tailgunners and before the rest of them reach Pearl Harbor anyway. I scored some hits on the bombers but the low firepower of the p40b does not do well at taking out aircraft with safe deflection shots in one pass.

As soon as my engine is started I turn the aircraft to the left and take off between two parked P-40s and I head right for the mountain-range to shake-off attacking zeros. Then I figure my real duty is to cover my wingmen who have just taken off behind me if there is anything left of them. Just fighting the zeros attacking the field is enough of a challenge.

If you take enough fuel and evade the zeroes then you can attack lots of bombers which have probably already dropped their loads, I was doing this and I ran out of fuel, I looked and by default it had only given me 30%, next time I took 50%.

Thanks for the reply and advice Jumoschwanz. Glad you had some challenge too! 30% fuel is fine for me for this mission though. I never live long enough to run out!

Some interesting points with this mission are:

The briefing asks you to hit aircraft before they hit their targets (with the bombers targetting Pearl), but the actual target set in the mission file is to defend Bellows airfield as you suggest.

Unfortunately, the Defend Ground target settings don't work properly in the current version so you will be credited with a successful Bellows defence even if you just sit there and die, provided you wait ten minutes for the credit to kick in. I've adjusted the settings on mine so you at least have to disrupt the attack a bit to get the mission credit!

I happen to be reinstalling at the moment and tried this mission a few times at 4.07 standard. The P-40s don't seem to come under attack straight away, allowing all three to get into the air safely. So I guess when the mission was first designed it was a whole lot easier to at least get off the ground!

Sadly, the way it plays now is actually closer to the real history. In reality one pilot was killed climbing into his cockpit, the second was shot down just as he got airborne, and the third went down after a short one-sided fight.

I had literally tons of QMB scenarios in which I went vs at least 4 ace enemy aircraft of the correct period. Like Hurricane vs 4 He-111 (downing 4 of those on ace level with Hurri was a nightmare as those were the snipers back in a day), F6F3 vs 4x ace Ki-84s, F4F vs 4x ace A6M etc. stuff like that.
Arguably A6M was the toughest ace Ai from that time, close second would be boosted Spitfire. But last time I fired up the game it was like 2009 or 2010 so many thing could have changed.

Once I even pushed to the limits and went Me-262 vs B-17 scenario... managed to down 25 of them on realistic settings.

One of these days I'll probably put some of the most interesting stuff online, if for anything that for nostalgia's sake.